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Syria, Russia, and Trump
I’m not sure how much news about Aleppo is filtering through the non-stop election coverage. Although my sense was that Gary Johnson did, indeed, know what Aleppo was (and just flubbed the question through some kind of inattention), that kind of inattention is only possible if the subject just isn’t something you think about all that much.
I don’t know whether he’s typical of American voters. It’s not something the next president will be able to ignore, though, that’s for sure. Aleppo’s now a hellscape reminiscent of the Battle of Stalingrad. Even by the horrifying standards of the Syrian war, the past week’s events Aleppo represent a new level of depravity. Russian and Syrian government airstrikes killed more than 300 people, most of them civilians and many of them children; more than 250,000 civilians are trapped. They’re under attack by the Syrian military and by thousands of foreign militiamen commanded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah fighters, and Russian ground troops; and they’re under bombardment by heavy Russian and Syrian air power — the most sustained and intense bombardment since the beginning of the war. A genuine Axis of Evil, if anything ever was, has emerged from this. Most of the civilians are, according to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria, being killed by Russians. I don’t know how reliable they are, so take this with the usual caveats:
Meanwhile, Putin has formally resurrected the KGB itself:
According to the Russian daily Kommersant, a major new reshuffle of Russia’s security agencies is under way that will unite the FSB (the main successor agency to the KGB) with Russia’s foreign intelligence service into a new super-agency called the Ministry of State Security — a report that, significantly, wasn’t denied by the Kremlin or the FSB itself.
The new agency, which revives the name of Stalin’s secret police between 1943 and 1953, will be as large and powerful as the old Soviet KGB, employing as many as 250,000 people.
The creation of the new Ministry of State Security represents a “victory for the party of the Chekists,” said Moscow security analyst Tatyana Stanovaya, referring to the first Bolshevik secret police. The important difference is that, at its core, the reshuffle marks Putin’s asserting his own personal authority over Russia’s security apparatus. …
“On the night of September 18 to 19 … the country went from authoritarian to totalitarian,” wrote former liberal Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov on his Facebook page.
And the Ukrainian military is reporting the heaviest day of fighting since the latest attempt at a ceasefire came into effect on September 15.
Richard Cohen at the Washington Post, not exactly known as a Trump booster, is absolutely scathing about the Administration’s role in this:
This is not Kerry’s failure. It is Obama’s. He takes overweening pride in being the anti-George W. Bush. Obama is the president who did not get us into any nonessential wars of the Iraq variety. The consequences for Syria have been dire — perhaps 500,000 dead, 7 million internal refugees, with millions more surging toward Europe like a tsunami of the desperate.
European politics has been upended — Germany’s Angela Merkel is in trouble, Britain has bolted from the European Union, and Hungary and Poland are embracing their shameful pasts — but there is yet another casualty of this war, the once-universal perception that the United States would never abide the slaughter of innocents on this scale. Yet, we have. Obama has proclaimed doing nothing as doing something — lives saved, a quagmire avoided. But doing nothing is not nothing. It is a policy of its own, in this case allowing the creation of a true axis of evil: a gleeful, high-kicking chorus line of Russia, Iran and Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. They stomp on everything in their path.
Aleppo then is like Guernica, a place of carnage. It’s also a symbol of American weakness. The same Putin who mucks around in Syria has filched U.S. emails and barged into the U.S. election. He has kept Crimea and a hunk of Ukraine and may decide tomorrow that the Baltics, once Soviet, need liberating from liberation. He long ago sized up Obama: all brain, no muscle.
All over the world, U.S. power is dismissed. The Philippine president, a volcanic vulgarian, called the president a “son of a whore” and, instead of doing an update of sending in the fleet, Obama canceled a meeting. China constructs synthetic islands in the Pacific Ocean, claiming shipping lanes that no one should own, and every once in a while a U.S. warship cruises close — but not too close. We pretend to have made a point. The Chinese wave and continue building. The North Koreans are developing a nuclear missile to reach Rodeo Drive, and God only knows what the Iranians are up to deep in their tunnels.
Does all this stem from Uncle Sam’s bended knee in Syria? Who knows? But U.S. reluctance to act has almost certainly given others resolve.
A question for those of you who plan to vote for Donald Trump. Your logic (I assume) is that Hillary Clinton is associated with Obama’s disastrous foreign policy, and should pay the price for this at the ballot box. If this were a normal election, who could disagree? But don’t you think that it isn’t a normal election? Unlike hapless Gary Johnson, Donald Trump almost certainly has no idea what Aleppo is, and he’s shown no desire or ability to learn. You saw it: He arrived at the debate as unprepared to discuss foreign policy as he was at the start of his campaign. And to the extent he has any coherent policy, it’s explicitly to make the Obama Administration’s foreign policy look interventionist by comparison.
Vladimir Putin not only supports Trump, but is almost certainly actively interfering with an American election with the aim of ushering him into office. Trump, as we saw in the debate, either doesn’t know this, or denies it, or doesn’t even understand what the relevant words mean:
As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don’t — maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?
You don’t know who broke in to DNC.
But what did we learn with DNC? We learned that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people, by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. That’s what we learned.
Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know, because the truth is, under President Obama we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control over.
We came in with the Internet, we came up with the Internet, and I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what [the Islamic State] is doing with the Internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS.
So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is — it is a huge problem. I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable.
Did that garbled speech make Trump-supporters here hesitate at all? “I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers?” We all know elderly, disoriented people who talk like that. In my experience people who talk like that can’t understand these things — it’s not that they don’t want to, it’s that they don’t have the cognitive ability. How could Donald Trump possibly understand what people tell him about Russia and Syria, even if he did surround himself with “the best” advisors?
Do you see any sign that “the best” advisors are helping him to understand what he’d confront from his first minute in office? If so, what sign do you see that I don’t?
Published in General
Of course that cuts both ways. Everyone involved in letting the world slide into WWII was a combat vet. Those who chose not to arm against Germany just as much as those (like Churchill) who cried from the wilderness that peace through strength was the better course.
No. There are plenty of men in our generation and in my son’s generation who command the kind of respect to which you’re referring. I’ve met them.
You can read to your heart’s content elsewhere about Hillary Clinton’s rationale (the end) for her Libya strategy, and decide whether or not she went into the matter with her eyes open and with a plan. As far as the process and the aftermath (the means), I refer you to the last paragraph of my comment #60.
I try not to confuse the end with the means when thinking about her motivations (which, in case you’re not paying attention or reading too closely, I generally regard as wrong and/or evil in almost all cases).
Those who would oppose Hillary Clinton really need to decide (as many already have) whether she is a despicable person who is also a cold and scripted automaton who calculates her every move, and who doesn’t deviate from her grand plan, either in the face of setbacks or the wreckage she trails in her wake; or whether she is a despicable person who is ignorant on almost every topic she is required to discuss, and who shoots from the hip and says whatever comes into her mind, and sometimes much more, about any given subject, at any given time.
Because she’s probably not both.
For the record, I think she’s behind door number one.
And exactly because I believe she is cold, calculating, self-aware, and so very destructive and corrupt, I think she is likely more dangerous than she would be, were she the candidate behind door number two.
Read into that what you will.
Calling Lincoln a brilliant war president is a stretch in my opinion. His handling of his generals was criminally stupid and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands on both sides and needless damage to infrastructure that destroyed vast parts of the country for decades. If he had been a military man, it is quite possible that he would’ve had a more keen understanding of the new tactics that were needed due to evolved technology. The war could’ve been over in months. Just my opinion though.
Just as a coda to my comment #93, I will extend my remarks as follows, in relation to, not foreign policy, in which I can claim only the perspective of an interested, and, I hope, reasonably intelligent, bystander, but information technology, where I have broad experience, and some reasonably good credentials over a period of several decades.
Unlike me, James Comey does not discern any intent, in Hillary’s conduct, (you might say he is saying that “she did not know what she was doing”), and for that reason, he declined to recommend prosecution for her.
Because I think Hillary knew exactly what she was doing, even though she hired a bunch of clowns to carry out the job, I think she should be in jail right about now.
The record will show whether she gets away with it (again), or if a deus ex machina in the form of Vladimir Putin, or Uncle Julian (but perhaps I repeat myself), or a 400lb blogger sitting on his bed somewhere, or perhaps Trump’s ten-year-old son with “computers,” will trip her up.
Whatever it is, if that happens, it probably won’t happen as a result of the “system,” or the “establishment,” which will cover for her every time.
And that is just another reason why this woman, who knows what she is doing, is so dangerous, and why it is dangerous to pretend that she does not.
Yep. She very much knows what she is doing.
Aleppo is in the nightly news for about 2 minutes at best. I think those who believe Trump doesn’t understand anything regarding what has taken place or how to fix it is mistaken. More concerning is that Hillary is not a hawk, nor was Bill or Obama. They did not build and modernize the military, including cyber, and went against the advice of the military leaders. This is yet another crisis that has been building and current events not surprising, along with many other issues.
Hillary had the job of SoS for God’s sake, the advisor to the president! She couldn’t even keep classified emails straight!! How could anyone have confidence? I have followed her for years and she says a few token words after the fact when there is a crisis – no leadership at all. She is all for taking more refugees. Putin is an opportunist, a general said on 60 Minutes Sunday – that’s why he is in Syria. To go to Totalitarian is ghastly – what is anyone doing? He knows no one will do anything. He may even think he is propping up Trump and he’ll return the favor-trying to disarm a potential problem.
I think behind closed doors many in leadership have met with Trump before endorsing. If they thought Hillary was the better choice they would support her, but polls are showing opposite. I am not a Trump fan, but give me a reason to have confidence in Hillary?
Johnson clearly didn’t know what Aleppo was. He said later, dishonestly, that the reason for his issue was that he misheard and thought that Barnicle had used an acronym, but he didn’t respond coherently even after Barnicle had explained.
Then he got on interviews hours later, and his intense preparation had told him which side of the town was held by Assad and which by the FSA, but he managed to include in his three sentence summary a claim that the FSA were aligned with ISIS and that the Kurds were fighting ISIS.
Obviously, the Kurds in Aleppo aren’t fighting ISIS. They’re fighting Assad. Johnson can’t learn that sort of information, though, because he’s not a libertarian of the sort who might support letters of marque and reprisal. Right now, Obama and Clinton support, roughly, that as a policy; identifying and supporting friendly actors to do the fighting for us. Johnson isn’t a libertarian. He’s a socialist. He’s not against involvement in Syria, he’s on the other side.
Because he’s an enthusiastic, albeit ignorant, supporter of Putin and Assad, he can’t talk about Assad’s chemical weapon attacks on civilians (which is what Barnicle was asking him about). He’s an awful human being with lists of flaws that make the Reagan membership word limit a problem, but it’s not fair to accuse him of having the flaws of a libertarian. Here, and in most other contexts, he is free of those issues.
Sorry I can’t offer anything more optimistic, but Scott Adams predicts there is more slaughter to come: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151056198611/the-wall-around-isis
Very clarifying. Thank you.
I think you give too much credence to world opinion — this is the same world that thought Obama would lower the encroaching seas and bring world peace through his multiculti upbringing and European social(ist) democrat ambitions. We’re seeing how that worked out. There is no wisdom whatsoever in “world” opinion. And certainly none that has America’s interests at heart.
I also think you’re projecting your own fear of Trump being the end of America onto the world players. I find it disconcerting how #NeverTrumpers seem to prefer a “competent” leftist technocrat over a political outsider and citizen candidate, who happens to be the embodiment of the Europeans’ “ugly American” sneer.
I’m becoming convinced #NeverTrumpers are just too embarrassed to tolerate President Trump, no matter what kind of social, economic, and international chaos a Clinton term would bring. She may be a monster, but at least she’s not ignorant and — common.
Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
Wait, wait, wait- I have an idea.
Israel and Saudi Arabia should clean this up.
After all, they are much closer to Syria than the US, and both have large, powerful armed forces that could easily be deployed to save the children of Aleppo.
Of course, they’d likely suffer thousands of dead and expend many billions of shekels and rials- but no matter. The children of Aleppo would be safe- except for those killed in the fighting, of course.
Well, if you want to save omelets you have to break a few eggs, or something like that.
And in Clinton we would be electing a President committed to ramping up the policies of the last eight years which took us from sort of OK to really bad and have increasingly looked like Obama’s mouth writing checks he has made doing his
bestworst to make sure our [CoC] aren’t going to be able to cash. Hillary is the one who pushed the overthrow of Khadaffi, for example.Trump may be accused of bunkum; I think he may have been “speaking to Buncombe” which is now much more than one county.
Worse, based on what Stephen Cohen has been saying over the last couple of years (I listen to his conversations with John Batchelor) the Russian position is that the election of President Clinton II would make nuclear war in Europe very likely in the next couple of years. He may be disseminating Russian disinformation, of course.
FWIW, Scott Adams, who has been very interesting reading during the campaign, recently wrote this:
The next president will face highly provocative action in two hemispheres. The Chinese and the Russians are probably coordinating the timing of actions they might otherwise be doing separately to discomfit the USA. Persuasion and negotiation are likely to be key presidential skills.
Yup. I coined the term “Pre-War Years” here as a descriptor for this feeling. What serious world-changing plan to kill kill kill until the bad guys are dead do you see? Is your strategy just to keep killing Americans until the public “wakes up”? I am not interested in being bled. We have quit the Global War on Terror, in all but a political sense.
I am ready to bomb what needs bombing and kill who needs killing. I am not ready to go single-buttocked into a grinder of meat, money, morals and reputation in order to support no clear ally for no clear national interest.
Facts not in evidence. Watch your mouth. I wanted to bomb Russian tanks in 2008. Do you know where? Do you know why?
And your stuff is what? Clearly not American propaganda, that’s certain. Who benefits? Who bleeds?
She was trying to set up a client state in which to conduct arms and money transactions, and to launder Clinton Foundation business through the State Department as her personal mid-east satrap under a Clinton Presidency. She and Obama had a secret about Syria and the “good guys” that they proved willing to kill for.
This is less far-reaching and better substantiated than Claire’s apocalyptic free-association about the results of a Trump administration.
Screw the Sunni. Screw the Shia. Screw the seveners and the twelvers. Screw the takfir and screw the takfiri. Screw the Sunni on a boat. Screw the Shia with a goat. Nay, tashakur salaam, I do not like Islam-I-am.
Why do people insist on calling the people in Aleppo civilians. It has been ground zero for Al-Qaeda and they have been in control for years. What is sad is that only 390 “civilians” have been killed. Sad it is not many, many more — who will likely be showing up on doorsteps to perpetrate acts of terror.
The Russians are doing the west a positive favor.
@claire, Hillary is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Putin. “Reset”, anybody? Remember that?
And @lois-lane, has your son shared a laugh with you about his code of conduct training? One of the questions concerns the amount of effort the USG will go to for Americans in distress abroad, and another concerns negotiations with terrorists; payments thereto.
Haw haw haw! I get both of these questions “wrong” every year.
Pope Francis said WW III has already begun in some ways – but its different than WWII and will be fought differently. There is the potential for more damage and countries that have never before in history, have become allies, like the axis of evil that Claire describes. Even back in the late 30’s-40’s, we saw how quickly evil spread – a matter of weeks, and left unspeakable devastation. The only way we can hold evil back is to face it, and fight it with everything we have.
Many are saying a perfect storm is brewing, financial bubbles, civil unrest – we are not in a good place. Cyber terror can do more damage than any conventional means. We have not kept up in that area – or maybe we have, but it’s become hard to keep up. Evil never takes a break.
To be strong, we have to get our own house in order, but there is no time. So the next president will be fighting many battles simultaneously. I look for the next 3 months to define the next presidency. I pray a lot. O’s days in the Oval Office can’t end quick enough.
No. He hasn’t. But we don’t like Clinton. Or Trump. Fortunately, he serves a Constitution. Not a woman. Or a man.
I realize I’m nearly alone in my support for GW and Mitt Romney’s world view, but in case anyone is interested, this is Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech from October 7, 2011. He had already asked John Bolton to be his secretary of state. The picture he drew of the state of the world if Obama were left in office for four more years is uncanny in its accuracy.
Unfortunately, Clinton and Trump sound a lot alike when it comes to foreign policy, so I think things will get much worse over the next four years, no matter who is elected.
I think the picture would look very different had Romney been elected four years ago, and I wish he had run this time. I believe he would have won against Hillary Clinton simply because he could run against the Obama administration, of which she was a part, and about which he accurately warned us four years ago. Trump may win, but as far as foreign policy is concerned (and I am voting for him anyway because he is a Republican and the people he brings into his administration will be mostly Republicans, so there’s hope for sanity), it really is six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Indeed, they would have blamed him. Plus, Trump is running such an emotional campaign that he would have turned people against the ever-rational Romney. If fact, Mitt’s approval rating tanked after the speech he gave saying that Trump was unfit to be president. People were already charged up for Trump, and they like him very much. What was interesting was that they were charged up over immigration mostly, which was a key concern in Romney’s own campaign. It’s as if no one ever heard him.
This is one strange election.
Should be required questions of Congress before any “resolution of use of force” is brought before them. Hell, should be asked before ANY war. I’m not reflexively anti-war the way a , say, Justin Raimondo is. But I’ve become much more cynical about fighting wars as I’ve gotten older. Even when you win, results are never clean cut and there are consequences you’re gonna hate coming down the road.
I was not excited by Trump, but I disapproved of Mitt’s statement regarding him. Like Ted Cruz at the convention and Mike Lee during the roll call, I thought it was unseemly and bad form. In Mitt’s case, it was especially unattractive in contrast to Mitt’s suckupathon speech in 2012 as he accepted Trump’s support (and money).
Many probably are.
In situations like this armed groups, and even governments, routinely restrict the departure of civilians from besieged conflict zones in order to make it harder for their opponents to bomb them dead – in this age where the consequences are almost immediately videoed and uploaded and shown on the nightly news of the great and the good and the rich civilians are a ruthlessly used as shields.
Examples that easily come to mind: Sarajevo, the end of the Eelam war in Sri Lanka, anywhere ISIS takes over, many besieged parts of Syria and now Aleppo.
Claire,
I am afraid I’m going to agree with BDB here. The Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy was both corrupt and stupid from its inception. You are suffering from Putin derangement syndrome. I was the one willing to fly 50 A10s to the Kiev airport and park them there. (It’s just amazing what A10s could do to a panzer thrust.) That would have settled Putin’s ass down immediately and we could have moved on to other things. With the Obama ZERO foreign policy nothing gets done but more words and meaningless photo-ops. The recent cease-fire is a perfect example. Great photo-op but they forgot to stop shooting. Gosh, I never would have guessed.
Regards,
Jim